She came alive in a library, nerves awakening with a fiery blaze as awareness flooded her mind, and she screamed. Birth is never easy, often bloody and is defined by pain, and hers was no different. From blank nothing to sentience and stimuli - the nascent mind prepares itself, grows in gestation and slowly awakens to the world beyond one's skin and toes and self, but she was not grown. But she was created, not born, and so she screamed, her first conscious act one of fear and pain and confusion, flailing and wailing as she became suddenly aware of herself and her new, tiny world. She was alive and she hated it.

 Eventually her sobbing stilled to a dull ache, an innate instinct pulling her away from the pain to instead learn of herself and this world she had been brought to. By our standards, she was in a small room - three times as long as she was tall, and she was not very tall at all - lined with shelves, each groaning beneath the weight of dusty, forgotten books. She reached out towards one - whether book or shelf is uncertain, for her movement halted in surprise as her own hand swam into her field of view. Curious, she stared at it, for minutes, seconds, hours, eyes studying its curves and lines, the arc of muscle beneath flesh, the delicate flex of tendons, the pulse of blood through the veins quietly blue under pale white skin. Enraptured, she let out a soft noise, and attempted her first word - whoever had created her had leapfrogged over usual development and after a bit of searching, an impulse swam up from her murky, newborn brain.

 "Cluuvia," she murmured, voice hoarse and soft.

 Her own words startled her, then, and she shrunk back, peering anxiously about the small chamber, eyes wide and nervous as nausea grasped her stomach in a tight grip. Her eyes did not understand perspective, yet, and her mind turned cartwheels to try to make sense of the room's quickly shifting view as her head turned. Several moments passed, before she steadied herself, implanted impulses gradually taking over. Whoever had created her had done their job well - she learned quickly, gradually overcoming her disorientation as curiosity pushed its way to the forefront of her mind once more.

 "B....book..." she whispered as she reached for a tome again. This time she recognized the voice as her own and sifted through what she knew, what she had been given, and realized that she could read. She did not know what reading was, nor its purpose, but, as if by magic, the drawings on the spine danced and twisted in semblance, resolving into words and meaning. Fingers fumbled with the book until they figured out how to grip and then carefully pulled the volume towards where she lay with a soft hiss of leather against stone. 

 It took her several minutes before she realized books could be opened, but once she did, oh, then her mind unfolded, soaring like a fledgling bird on her first flight. Stumbling, swooping, finally skirling high in understanding, she read and read and read, weakness fading as she began to exercise unused muscles. Her legs learned to stand and walk, while her arms discovered how to lift and carry, fingers refining their movements until she could clumsily handle basic intricacies - parallel to this mastery of her body came a deeper and gradual understanding of her mind. She would likely never be a scholar or even intelligent, but she did come to eventually realize that she was a person, and that the world was full of many others, in all shapes and sizes. As she read, she learned of their dreams and hopes, their fears, their pains and sorrows and loves and joys, and her curiosity grew, the latent spark her creator must have thought necessary fanned to a burning pyre of keen hunger to learn more.

 She spent days like this - her creator had seemed to see no need for bodily functions, so she had no hunger or thirst or sleep, merely hour after hour of reading and learning and growth until she could stand and walk and run. Her wings seemed useless, non-responsive at their best and downright rebellious at their worst, as if a second mind had been created on her back to mirror the one filling her head. She knew too little of the world to question this, and, after finishing a rather florid piece about something called a family in a place called the Serenwilde, she began to call the wings her sister.

 The rest of her was made well, however, if a bit on the spindly side, with long coltish limbs and a hungry, waifish build, and after a week of reading she became impatient to move, her legs and arms itchy for more to do, so she began to study her world.

 She had named it, of course, the way that children unable to comprehend a place past their own paradigm name the world, giving each important facet of her reality an absolute title - the ceiling became sky, the shelves horizon, the walls end. She discovered the words father and mother, but the concept twisted away from her, thoughts becoming slippery as she tried to hold it, so she left such ideas dormant and quiescient for the time, focusing instead of her physical reality. She did not understand truth or lies, fiction and fantasy, deception, innuendo, not even humour, and simply took what she read as solid fact, building the world she knew around such things. The books spoke of worlds - Beyond, she titled them, sorting all outside the room into a nebulous and confused category. They must exist, but not here, she quietly reasoned, and so she stumbled upon the concept of space beyond her room. Her curiosity bit at her, and she began to explore.

 It did not take long to discover the door; once she began to look with the proper paradigm, it leapt out at her, immediately obvious after days of hiding directly before her. After a few false starts, she determined how to open it, and emerged, blinking, into the true world.

 ----------------

 It was almost like being born again - her senses were on fire as fear overtook that driving curiosity to leave her momentarily paralyzed. To us, it would be dull, simply another room in an empty library, but to her it was terrifyingly vast and new. The books had a different smell, the warm scent of vellum brighter than the heavy must she had grown to know. The horizons - shelves - were no longer borders at the edge of reality, but instead simply pathways through the world, while overhead the ceiling-sky loomed tall as the heavens she had read of.

 "Beyond," she softly mumbled, eyes wide as fear slowly transformed into wonder.

 A high pitched, burbling sound split the air. She turned, elf-like ears lifting and swivelling as she tried to pinpoint this unfamiliar noise, and froze as something shifted into view.

 "This is just our fiction section," came words, and she realized, instantly, that people spoke to communicate, a rush flooding through her as her mind made the leaping connection between what she knew and what she now saw and heard. She did not know to find fear, however, for her creator had apparently seen little use in such things - her instinct for terror ran raw and primal, wired for innate preservation, and she knew nothing of men save what she had read, so she merely stared, transfixed by the sight before her.

 He stood tall, at least two heads higher than her, and was smiling. She did not know what that meant, and remained silent. Behind him were wings, and her eyes shifted to those - instead of the stained glass of butterflies, his appeared soft, the sight sparking a memory, and she sought it, chasing after the thought. There had been a tale of a powerful creature who shattered, once upon a time, and her lips parted, reaching, grasping...

 "Feathers," she murmured, surprised by her own word.

 The man blinked at her, momentarily taken aback by the simple statement, and slowly nodded, smile stretching into a grin. "Yes," he agreed. "I have feathers. "I am a trill."

 "Trill," she repeated, curiously rolling the word around on her tongue. The man nodded, taking a cautious step closer and gently informed her, "And you are a faeling."

 "A failing..." she echoed. Her mind took that word, worming through what she had read, and she felt the first, odd sense of emptiness, despite all that was new and overwhelming, as if she should have some reaction but simply lacked the faculty to fabricate it. She frowned thoughtfully, trying again. "I....am....failing."

 The man smiled gently, giving her a nod of encouragement. "You must be enrolled in the Sacred Flame?" he offered. "Lost are we?" His smile brightened. "Worry not! We shall help you find your way back!" He crooked one finger in a beckon. Her head tilted, confused, but something about the gesture spoke to something inside. She found herself stepping closer, falling into line behind the man.

 "Lost," she whispered. She knew that word. She knew many words. "Tossed. Cost." Her voice lilted up instinctively, and she asked her first question. "Boss?"

 The man chuckled, shaking his head. "Just a scholar, miss," he demurred. "Come, let's get you back where you belong."

 She nodded, mimicking his earlier movement, and tried out a smile. It sat easily enough on her face, but again she felt that inexplicable odd hole, as if there should be something behind it, something inside of her viscerally reacting to the twitching and flexing of her muscles. She began to walk along with him, eagerly scanning each shelf they strode by, until the pair reached a set of wide, tall doors. She lagged behind, then, eyes wide as that primal self-preservation sent a course of adrenalin through her. "Beyond..." she softly murmured, apprehensive as raw fear shook her voice.

 "Gaudiguch," the man corrected, voice kind and eyes soft.

 "Gaudiguch," she echoed. The man nodded, winking once as he happily declared, "Freedom!"

 With that, the man stepped forwards, pushing the doors open to the hot, bright world outside, haloing her in blinding light as sand gusted across the library steps and into the foyer, dancing and shifting in a hot, spice-laded breeze. Canticles drifted towards her from somewhere far in the distance and, for a brief moment, as her eyes adjusted to the sun, she spied a sparkling, prismatic glimpse of something high above, motes of shimmering dreams raining down from the sky. Made as she was, a creature of innate fear and curiosity and wonder, she found herself frozen, overwhelmed by this small window into the real world, and found herself turning to the man, her sole teacher and companion, with questions in her eyes.

 He smiled, offering her his hand. She hesitated, uncertain what to do, before something inside guided her. Her small, slight fingers slipped into his own, and then the pair were off, winding through the city in a dizzying, confusing trail. She said nothing, merely followed and watched and learned, and so the Secret Flame received its first homunculus pupil.

 ---------------

 Her days after this were dizzy and busy, hours swept up in quietly learning the basics of being a person. She asked questions, many, driven by the instinctive imperative imbued in her by her creator, ever always learning as much as she could, as if she were a Soulless abomination and knowledge the only thing to sate her need. She learned to smile and laugh and did so often, taking note of their effect on people - to her, they were merely movements, like the bending of legs and pull of nerves to run, but they were effective and so she seemed happy and delighted. She learned to speak, truly, words becoming more than vessels for meanings, becoming conversation, becoming inquiries, becoming a way to study not just concepts and the world, but also those who inhabited it, and she tucked away each tidbit she learned. She learned all the trappings of a true person alongside her College work, and many saw her and were impressed by this young, keen, friendly girl.

 Her courses proved difficult at first - she lacked the context for basic instructions, so each task became a research trip back to her birthplace. Every now and then, as she studied, she caught glimpses, a familiar figure out of the corner of her eyes, but for a long span she was undisturbed. Finally, one day, as she was nose-deep in a book explaining the nature of butterflies, he approached.

 "You never told me your name, you know," he grinned in greeting, sliding down into the chair across the table from where she sat. 

 "Perhaps I do not have one," she truthfully replied, falling into a speculative silence as she began to wonder what she was called. She smiled, as she had learned, and the man laughed, slapping his hands on the table in delight.

 "Witty!" he admired, gaze lingering on her a heartbeat longer than others had in the past. She considered this, tucking this information away, and continued to read.

 "Oh," the man exclaimed, tilting the book up to read its title. "You're preparing to visit the planes?"

 She carefully pressed the book down flat, nodding as she continued to research. Cocoons shelter the larvae as they grow, the tome explained. And, when they are fully formed, they emerge one day, wings unfurling and colors bright, but the dance is a brief one, for this is their final act in life. The beauty heralds their own doom, and soon they die, their short life snuffed in a last, glorious flutter.

 "What is death?" she asked quietly, most of her attention still fixed on the book. One ear lifted, listening.

 The man was silent.

 "The book," she tried again. "It says that butterflies die, once they ha-"

 "They do," the man interrupted, a pensive frown in his voice. "Butterflies die, rabbits die, even you and I die. Everything dies, if the body containing it is injured enough. That is our design."

 "Everything?" she asked.

 "Everything," he answered.

 Perhaps not, she thought, a strange new idea dawning in her mind. It was as if she had another set of eyes, eyes deep inside of her which saw unseeable truths, and now they had begun to slowly blink open, their vision still hazy and unfocused, but awake enough to make out forms and impressions, hints of concepts to reach for. I am a butterfly, she realized. Not a person. I was not born. I emerged.

 She smiled again, as she had learned, and softly stated, "My name is Chrysalia." It seemed right.

 The man smiled back, quietly musing, "A beautiful name for a beautiful girl."

 "I suppose," she replied, and then said nothing more, returning to her studies.

 -------------

 The wakabi feared her - she could see it, instantly, her eyes quickly scanning its defensive stance, ears taking in the warbling whine, mind quickly leaping from the physical clues to an assessment in a heartbeat. She did not know why, but she had grown used to it - all animals she had seen had shied from her, cats darting down allies, birds taking flight, even a lion in the mountains retreating in panic. She considered the concept of animals, reviewing what she had learned, and slowly but firmly approached the bird.

 She said nothing, instead mimicking a song she had heard while exploring the city. It was soft and slow, a ballad to halfway stumble through at the end of a hard-drunk night, but it helped - the bird's nervous skittering slowly stilled enough for her to approach and she firmly gathered the beast in her arms. It was too much, too soon, and the bird began to panic, wings slashing and talons flashing to leave bloodless furrows in her flesh, like fingers digging through clay. She maintained her grip and continued her song and, gradually, the wakabi began to calm.

 She thought of animals as she wandered the city, bringing the bird to key landmarks to sniff and scratch and peck about before coaxing it back into her arms. Each time became a bit easier and so she learned that people were not the only things who could learn - still, the distinction eluded her. What made a beast a beast and a person a person? Perhaps it was words, she considered, but then recalled a scholarly work from Tosha, written by a silent monk there, and so she discarded that possibility. Perhaps it was the body, although the trill in the library had feathers and a tae'dae near the Flame had fur - if the difference lay in form, it was too subtle for her to see, yet.

 As with many of her thoughts, she set the idea aside to ferment in the back corners of her mind, and focused on the learning before her. There was a reason she was being asked to lead the bird around - she was a new scholar and unskilled in most everything except reading. The city's staff would likely have to retrain the bird, which means the task was for her benefit - she noted that, as well as everywhere she had been asked to visit, memorizing the routes and rooms to add to her small stockpile of information.

 Midway through the list, an idea struck her, and she took a detour to the city's market district. She had seen people eat before, though the urge had never struck her, and wondered if beasts did as well. Midway down the street in the center of a large junction stood a tall board, covered with ads and fliers. A reminder about a daily drinking night, news of an upcoming Minstrels concert, some impassioned plea about an imminent pastry-based revolution...she sorted past all this noise she did not understand until, beneath the mess, she found the shop directory itself, its wooden base charred and splintered and reeking of booze. Rainbow letters spelled out directions to each shop in the city and she scanned the list, searching for something to do with food.

 The result was only a few steps away, a magnificent shrine erected outside its door depicting sublime figures. Inside, the air was heavy with spice and sugar, with gleaming glass cases housing an assortment of sweets. She smiled at the shopkeeper, as she had learned, and pointed to the first thing she saw. The woman warmly returned the smile and quickly handed over a piece of cake, wrapped in a twist of cinnamon-scented parchment.

 "No charge," the lady insisted, her smile widening. "I'm always happy to help new scholars."

 She smiled back at the woman, nodding, and filed that information away to study later. She had not yet learned of economics and value, but she had begun to become more wary with her questions. Of late, she had come to the conclusion that most, if not all, people were simply people and not butterflies - this led to more questions, but that innate instinct for fear sprang up as they formed on her lips, and so she learned to conceal such thoughts, only looking at them from the safe dark shadows of her own mind.

 Outside, she set the cake down, and then the bird. At first, the wakabi tilted his head, pecking in curiosity at the dessert, before he decided it would do nicely. Crumbs flew as he gobbled it down, and then his stare shifted back to the woman, head bobbing as he chirped plaintively. 

 "Another?" she asked. She did not know what wakabi ate - apparently it was cake - nor how much, so she was following the bird's lead in this. She returned to the shop, smiling again. 

 The woman behind the counter laughed as she entered, boasting, "Can't have just one slice, eh?" and before she could reply she found another piece in her hands and herself being shooed away. She smiled, returning to the bird, and placed the second slice on the ground. This the bird quickly chomped down, before it cautiously approached her, nervously cooing. She extended a hand and watched with interest as the bird bumped his head against her fingers, considering the ramifications of this practical lesson - she resolved, then, to always carry cake, for it seemed a useful tool for earning trust and smoothing situations.

 Gathering the bird back into her arms, she returned to the school. She was not content or happy - no, she did not seem built for such things, but lacking them meant never knowing them, so she felt little loss, simply an emptiness behind certain movements which she assumed was normal. Still, she had learned something, and a non-feeling settled over her, her mind silenced for a span - this she had grown to welcome, the silence between urges to study and learn and know more. She had found herself nearly consumed by research as days went by, at first simply for the impulse but now, now chased for the quiet which followed, for the stilling of the urge. In a way, each new revelation brought peace, so she pursued them to buy herself brief moments of nothingness.

 --------------

 She stood before a looming pyramid, gilt in gold, head turned up to watch as the setting sun streaked in a skittering dance across the glittering faces. 

 "So you're to become an Illuminati?"

 The words came from behind her and she turned in reflexive, animal fear to assess the danger - it was the trill, she quickly realized and relaxed. She had long since catalogued him as a non-threat. She smiled and the man smiled back, teeth white and gleaming as his gaze lingered on her.

 "Once I discover how..." she answered, turning to study the blank face of the pyramid again. The path ended here, running right into the wall, and she found herself stymied, unable to proceed.

 The man grinned, explaining, "The Illuminati are a guild of secrets. Nothing is as it seems..." He stepped closer, offering his hand. She took it and suddenly the world seemed to shift. Sunlight dwindled to the dim, soft glow of lanterns as a sandy breeze gusted into a faint twist of incense-laden smoke. Fear clutched at her once more, the strange and unexpected transition striking at her instincts, but then the man spoke.

 "We Illuminati see beyond what is easily seen."

 Her panic slid away to be replaced by the welcome blank nothing. She had learned what she sought.

 --------------

 Over time, she proved herself an adept scholar. Perhaps it was how she was created, or perhaps it was simply an effect of being what she was, but the plane of Vortex resonated with her - she would travel there to feed the fleshpots, quietly whispering a greeting to each one as if they were parents, slumbering, and she their child murmuring tales of her dreams. They rewarded her with wads of flesh, deposited tenderly at her feet, and she would wander the endless loop of the creche, ribbachi and hekoskeri and spix all stumbling behind her in an entralled entourage. She learned to feed them, and, one day, her curiosity drove her to emulate her mindless cousins.

 Her lips parted and she tasted flesh, the small bite lingering on her tongue. It tasted of salt and sweet and spice and more, things she had no words for, no context to understand or perhaps even organs to perceive, but it was intriguing, a flash of something new filling her, flooding into each empty space behind each hollow gesture and so she experienced true emotion, dozens all at once. She sobbed and laughed and slumped to the ground, furtively taking another bite, but perhaps it was too much too soon, for she could not replicate the effect. Frantic, she shoved another chunk into her mouth, and then another, until her stomach was bloated and she lay drunk and sick on divine flesh, but the beautiful initial rush did not return. Had she the capacity for it, she would have been sad, shattered and drowning in despair, but she did not, and soon her thoughts drifted back to the driving curiosity which fueled her.  She sought out the trill.

 -------------------

 He was in his office, deep in paperwork but at her soft knock he quickly looked up. Seeing it was her, he set down his quill and smiled. She smiled back, stepping inside.

 "Hello, dear," he said quietly, hands folding as he watched her approach. "Did you need help with something?"

 She nodded, brain quickly flashing between all she knew to structure her question. "What does it mean when you feel things, somewhere between body and mind? Not a thought and not a pain, but something straddling that, encompassing both?"

 The man chuckled. "Emotions?" he asked, amused, apparently taking her question as an esoteric musing. "Yes, they can be tricky, can't they, especially in our line of work." His eyes sparkled as he studied her and his eyebrows raised. "Are they for anyone in particular?"

 She didn't understand the question, but something about his tone and expression guided her answer. She blushed, as she had seen the ladies do when men spoke to them, and nodded, smiling as she said, "You, I suppose."

 The man's smile faded into surprise, and then widened as he quickly slipped out of his chair, skirting the desk to close the distance between himself and her in three quick strides. Silently, he reached out, folding her into his arms, and she found she did not mind the sensation. She had never been hugged before. Soon she would know kissing and touching and more, for her answer had been one the trill had been hoping to hear since he met her, he would go on to tell her.

 He told her many things over many days, weeks and soon months, by her side as often as he could be. He was delighted and amazed by her curiosity, and confessed one day that he loved her for it.

 "More than the stars love to shine," he swore, eyes bright as he stared upon her. "Your mind is so keen, so passionate, so quick - if I could create a person, a perfect person, I doubt I could come close to what you are." He smiled, loving and warm and enraptured, and she smiled back, empty and blank and feeling nothing except a hungry curiosity to plumb his mind and take what he knew.

 But no matter how often she asked, he would never teach her how to feel.

 "Tell me," she begged one day after they had made love. She did not object to it, for her body seemed built to recognize some forms of pleasure, and had grown to find time in his arms similar to the blank relief she felt when her curiosity was sated. "Tell me how to feel," she whispered. "Tell me of emotions."

 He smiled, stroking her hair, and dreamily began to recite poems and stories, telling her what he knew of emotions, with her in his life. He spoke of sadness, heavy and tugging and gone, now. He told her of happiness, bright and light and always lingering whenever she was near. He described the entire spectrum, and she felt that growing ache in her belly, the hungry gnawing of curiosity, and began to itch, her body itself compelling her to chase the knowledge.

 "Tell me where they come from," she insisted, words cutting through his murmurs of love. "Tell me how to make them."

 He blinked up at her, at first confused but then reluctant as he admitted, "...I do not know." He sighed, pressing his lips against her forehead, and murmured, "...Once, oh, once I tried to create them, from scratch, in a raw creation. I shaped her from flesh and dreams and shifted reality, but..." He shook his head, explaining, "...Oh, but she was hollow inside, deformed and twisted and empty and I gave up such experiments. Homunculus were not meant to transcend what they are."

 She said nothing and merely smiled as she had learned to and the hunger faded down into blank nothing.

 ------------------

 She began to slip away for quiet time alone, using all she had learned to conceal these trips, for they led her into dark corners and hidden depths of the Illuminati's pyramid. She explored and prodded and discovered long dormant secrets, hidden doors yawning open for her touch and secrets forgotten for centuries blossoming open for her to gaze upon. As with all else she learned, she tucked this information away, but she soon realized it was not enough - the hunger would not cease, no matter how much she discovered. Neither secrets nor the trill's touch would bring that relief she once sought, and her raw fears began to bubble up, surfacing in odd and unwanted moments.

 There was a guild rite, a gathering of cowled figures all chanting dark and hushed words as flesh bubbled and churned and bloomed into writhing tentacles and beautiful, ethereal limbs. As it came to her turn, her moment to join the ritual, her lips parted and a scream poured out, ripped reflexively from her to shatter the still and silence of the chamber. She was dismissed to rest, the guild agreeing that her intense studying had made her feverish.

 She lay in bed for days - she was not built for sleep, so she merely stared at the ceiling as her mind clawed her apart from the inside each time the trill visited. He stroked her hand, caressed her cheek, told her that he loved her, and then insisted she rest. She would scream and he would hold her, gentle, tender, soft, oblivious, but she knew, oh, yes, and her fear would leap higher like flames consuming a tree.

 He had made her, she had realized weeks before. Once upon a time, she had been an experiment, and had been deemed a failure and discarded. How she had come to the library, how she had been born at all, she did not know - perhaps the deformed once-her had feebly crawled off there to die, spinning itself into a death shroud's cocoon from which she had emerged. She was not built for imagination, however, so an empty aching gap remained in the story of her birth.

 Her curiosity began to consume her and she found herself unable to contain it any longer - the next time the trill visited she smiled the brightest smile she had ever learned to smile and softly told him she was ready to become better. He held her and hugged her and wept with joy, and swore the two would conquer anything and everything needed.

 "Anything?" she asked, voice low and quiet.

 "Everything," he swore tenderly.

 She held herself close to him, but it was no use. The drive still pushed her, and so she spoke the words to start her plan, the one she had quietly formulated between the screams and the visits and the all-consuming hunger. "Let us truly share each other," she whispered, and the man's eyes widened, first in fear but then narrowing into an intrigued, captivated curiosity.

 "Anything," he insisted, and so the procedures began.

 She smiled through it all and felt no pain. She had fear instilled to protect her, so pain seemed to have served little use in her creator's eyes. He, though, oh he did feel and nearly did not survive the first exchange. He had swayed, fainting as the blood streamed down his face, leaving her holding his eyes in her small hand as she patiently waited for him to awake. He screamed as he did, blind as a newborn, but she was there and calm, her voice soft with a smile, and gently her own eyes were placed in his gaping, torn sockets. The ritual continued, though the trill found himself bedridden for days in recovery.

 She used the time to refine her plans, sketching out diagrams of her own body and his to identify each piece to pare away and replace with his own - each shade of Vortex's rainbow was there, from eyes to hands to tongue and he loyally endured every exchange, the pains worse and more horrific with each procedure, until they finally reached Uurulu.

 She had hoped the hunger would fade, piecemeal, to be slowly eclipsed by the emotions she was unable to forget the feel of, like the phantom, remembered caress of a soft cloak worn in childhood....but she was wrong. No, instead, the hunger only grew, as one's belly pangs more sharply when it catches the scent of food, so she found herself pushed, driven to finish. On she spurred the man, the trill, her creator, leaving him weak and shivering and aching, his body a mismatched tapestry of her own discarded pieces.

 The final procedure was of her own design, based on a scroll from before the city's long imprisonment. Hearts were to be exchanged, the text advised, and she was too logical to ascertain if this was symbolic or not, so she allowed for no chances. She laid her lover out, hand rising to his cheek to mirror the soft caress he often gave her, and whispered for him to be still. He did his best to silence his shivering, his gaze, despite all his pain and fever and torment - or perhaps because of - clinging heavy to love.

 "Let us share our hearts," she murmured, one hand resting over his chest as she began the ritual. He made a strangled, faint sound. Her tongue had not transplanted well to his mouth and had swollen, leaving him choked and only able to whisper hoarse snatches.

 A faint glow began to emanate from around the pair as the ritual progressed, their auras made manifest. His was dim and dwindling, the weakness a stark contrast to her vibrant, almost violently bright glow - but hers was uniform, a perfect outline of her body, while his was alive, seething with emotions that danced and leapt and darted in constant undulations about his form. His eyes - her eyes - widened in confusion as he watched.

 "How..." he coughed.

 She said nothing. In the books she had read, people explained far too much at the far too wrong moments, and she had no desire to ruin this. She continued her work, reality shifting and shaping as his aura waned weaker. As it quieted into no more than a spark, his very existence leeching away from him, he began to rave, eyes rolling back in his head as sanity slipped. She watched, silent and dispassionate. 

 The change had not come, yet, and she felt a scream building, the hunger spurring her onwards. Her voice lifted and she began her chanting again, the words coming unbidden to her mind, and she dug into the skin of his exposed chest, hands stretching and distorting as fingers elongated into claws which burrowed deeper, piercing flesh and peeling back sinew.

 The man's eyes snapped open, lucidity returning as he gazed up at her. "You..." he murmured, voice heavy with so many things she could not understand.

 She hesitated, hands halfway deep into his chest, blood up to her elbows, and stared down at him. He smiled, twitching lips twisting into a broken smile as blood-flecked froth foamed from his mouth.

 "I....I love you."

 With that, she pushed onwards, bone snapping away as her hands found his heart. She gripped and pulled and he died, his eyes growing dull and empty as he gazed at her. She stepped away, shredding her own chest open - there was nothing there, of course, but there was a hole, and into this she carefully inserted his heart, her chanting continuing as she salved the wound with Lovashi's flesh. 

 For a long span, it seemed nothing had happened - everything had been futile, she realized, and she felt the curiosity, the hunger for knowledge, the drive he had instilled in her returning to torment her mind, and she opened her mouth to scream...

 ...and then a laugh bubbled forth, light and happy and free. She blinked, surprised at herself, and began to try the noise again, before a deluge of emotions washed over her. Staggering, she clung to the table where her dead lover lay, helplessly trying to weather the rapid onslaught like a swimmer tossed about by waves. Anger, hot and demanding, flooded through her, eclipsed by breathless joy and then a surge of lust, scarlet hazing her gaze until a melancholy blue sadness pulled her to her knees, cheek resting against the table's top, heedless of the blood.

 She had done it, she realized, and triumph swept through her, a delicious, delightful new sensation. Her eyes closed and she smiled her first real, true smile, a fierce and gleeful one of victory. She could feel, she was truly a person...

 Her eyes opened, and she slowly stumbled to her feet, staring down at her lover, her creator, her donor. Empty eyes and twisted features stared back above the gaping hole in his chest. The glee ebbed. "Thank you..." she began to slowly whisper, and then her mind, that lovely beautiful keen mind, remembered his words. 

 "I...I love you," she quietly heard, her memories drawing her back to his final moment - but this time, she was whole and full, truly cognizant of what being a person meant. In horror, she watched as she drained his aura, her own looming large and black and menacing and then fell to her knees, shaking her head as she cried out for herself, past-her, to stop. Useless in hindsight, she was forced to recall her hands shifting, the claws stretching cruel and sharp, and she sobbed, eyes closing as she tried to shy away from what came next. Perhaps some of him still lingered on in her, or perhaps humanity simply carried burdens she had not realized, for inexorable and relentless her memories continued onwards as she found herself forced to relive the murder, nausea roiling as she felt her hands sliding through sinew and his heart slick within her grasp.

 "No..." she breathed, but it was all far too late. Triumphant in the past, horrified in the now, she screamed as the memory pushed onwards, pleading for it to stop but powerless to control it. Slowly, sickeningly, the heart was placed into her chest and blackness swam up, overwhelming her. She fainted.

 -----------

 She awoke in her bed, dizzy and confused. Her mouth was dry and her stomach felt weak. It was if nerves had lain dormant her whole life and had suddenly burst afire and alive, leaving her raw and shaking.

 "The Cipher did not survive," came a low voice nearby. She turned her head, blearily focusing on its speaker, but the room was dim and the man was cowled. She tried to speak, but found herself unsure what to say. 

 "We have reviewed the situation," the voice continued, quiet and firm. "Given how unorthodox this is, and what you have become, we have decided that you must be studied. Do not distress, though, as most of the effects will be....ephemeral."

 "Eph...eph..." she tried to repeat, too weak to force her mouth to move properly.

 "You will be perfectly safe," the voice explained, tone quiet, dry and devoid of emotion. "You simply need rest here indefinitely, and we will check in as needed."

 "Ho...How long?"

 "Indefinitely."

 She tried to sit up, but swayed with dizziness, falling backwards as blackness yawned again. Her ears roared, a cacophony slowly diminishing into a single, soft whisper as her mind retreated to a familiar space and a remembered time. The walls of her room fell away, and from her mind grew a room, a table, a man, a body shaping around her until she was buried to the elbows. And then he spoke and so began her first of many dreams, one of the glorious gifts she had earned by becoming a real girl:

 "I...I love you."